I think I first noticed FIRE a couple of years ago when my oldest was trotting off to my alma mater. There was a local free speech case that FIRE was taking up and I started following it.

From what I've been able to see, FIRE is doing an incredible job of providing the best cleansing agent known to man...sunlight. That being said, how long do you think it will last before the academic establishment finds a way to combat it effectively? FIRE will have to be agile in the coming years.

I sent the UW-Stout article to my complete email list with the phone # of the Chancellor and told them to call and leave a message - respectful but strong. I heard from dozens of people they had one that and they they had forwarded my email to their email lists.

So, even though the story said that 1000 emails has been received I know the Chancellor received many phone calls, too!

I used to sit by and let stories like this go and say there is nothing to be done. No more! Voices need to be heard on so many issues and it is time we all start making our voices heard.

Leftist critic Raymond Williams distinguishes between these terms in his book Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society. Williams writes that the word “liberalism” enters into English from Old French in the 14th century and is originally used to imply generosity “but at the same time this was flanked by the negative sense of ‘unrestrained’” (179). Williams continues, “A weaker but related form of this sense is clear in the development, from C18 [18th century], of the sense of ‘not rigorous’” (180). Williams distinguishes between the term “liberal arts” which has to do with “the skills and pursuits appropriate, as we should now say, to men of independent means” (179) and adds that “…liberal as a term of political discourse is complex” (181), and says it has been under heavy assault from both conservative and socialist angles. From the socialist left, “liberal” often connotes individualism. Williams writes, “The sense of a lack of rigour has also been drawn on in intellectual disputes… But liberal as a pejorative term has often been widely used by socialists and especially Marxists…” (181). Michael Bérubé uses liberal as a defense of liberal arts in his books and assumes an alliance between Marxists and liberals, but this is not the case. Liberals, for their part, have not been without their response to socialists. Williams writes:

“…there is a special edge in their reply to socialists, that they are concerned with political freedom, and that socialists are not. But this masks the most serious sense of the socialist use, which is the historically accurate observation that liberalism is a doctrine based on INDIVIDUALIST (q.v.) theories of man and society and is thus in fundamental conflict not only with SOCIALIST (q.v.) but with most strictly SOCIAL (q.v.) theories. The further observation that liberalism is the highest form of thought developed within BOURGEOIS (q.v.) society and in terms of CAPITALISM (q.v.) is also relevant, for when liberal is not being used as a loose swear-word, it is to this mixture of liberating and limiting ideas that it is intended to refer. Liberalism is then a doctrine of certain necessary kinds of freedom but also, and essentially, a doctrine of possessive individualism” (Williams 181).

Williams make further distinctions between Marxism and socialism (Michael Bérubé does not), which further points up Bérubé’s conman's use of liberalism. Against the “possessive individualism” that liberalism has classically used as axiomatic, Bérubé argues that the poor have a moral claim on the wealth of the rich, for instance, and that progressive taxation should redistribute wealth. And yet, Bérubé is in favor of freedom of speech. A young man in one of his classes earns the grade of an A although he shares the abhorrent belief that Japanese-Americans belonged in internment camps during WWII. Bérubé accepts this, but does propose limits for freedom of thought: “Most important of all, we cannot and should not be held to a shallow, relativist conception of ‘intellectual diversity’ in which Holocaust deniers, al-Qaeda operatives, creationists, and people who believe in telepathy, astrology, and/or magic dolphins are given equal weight” (291).

When he’s done inventorying his strawmen, one comes to the conclusion that there is plenty of politics in this book, but very little of the “arts.”

at any rate, Berube is a bellwether of his species, homo academicus, and is illustrative of the type of shenanigans that have become endemic at U campuses throughout the nation, and in crummy places like Madison where they make up a plurality of the population.

What is UP with Wisconsin these days? As a native midwesterner, I view these college campuses more and more as an aberration--alien spaceships that landed, somehow, among otherwise sensible people...

At least in California you get decent weather with your wackiness. In Wisconsin--how does the joke go? You get ten months of winter and six weeks of bad ice skating.

Somebody get those college profs down to a Texas beach, give 'em a beer and thaw out all those brains that've been frozen in the off position. Life is good. It really is. Just ask any nearby Wisconsinite not attending your college.

It would appear that people will no longer be cowed into submission. We may yet be capable of preserving individual dignity and a reasonable measure of liberty.

The same thing is happening in Europe, despite protests from their left-wing, followed by general and unproductive accusations of prejudice, bias, phobias, etc. (with an apology offered from a selective history and selective reality).

As for FIRE, a few ACLU and SPLC alumni in their ranks. Well, maybe they have managed to rise above their special interests.

In any case, it would be desirable for the correction to complete without moving to extremes. So far, that seems to be the case in America. It would appear that Europe's fate will not be nearly so peaceful.

"Don't threaten me with charges that have no basis in reality--I am a committed pacifist and a devotee of non-violence, and I don't appreciate card carrying members of the NRA who are wearing side arms and truncheons lecturing me about violence."

From Miller's email convo with Walter. Somehow, I suspect Miller thinks this is conservatives doing this to him.

Penn State also has branch campuses all over the state. I guess they're for people who don't want to go to a (shudder) technical college but still haven't figured out what to do post-high school. Why not give money to educators?

"I guess they're for people who don't want to go to a (shudder) technical college but still haven't figured out what to do post-high school."

I would combine the two-year UW schools with the tech colleges. Eliminate the overlap and have a more seemless transition between tech and academic colleges -- students would benefit from both perspectives. Back in the day, such an idea would be called "progessive thinking". Today, it threatens too many fiefdoms and cushy jobs held by those with time to put innanities on their doors.

Polsby was both my Crim Law and First Amendment Law prof at Northwestern (and I AmJur'd the latter class). He introduced countless generations of students to the idea that "criminals are 'rational utility maximizers'", which has to rank among the greater-sounding verbal formulations ever uttered.

He's an incredibly brilliant mind, a rock-solid Second Amendment guy, and completely no-bullshit. The kind of non-flashy hombre for whom high praise is a given.

It was nice to see his name again after all these years and brought back lots of good memories; thanks for posting, Ann!

FIRE doesn't need to be agile. FIRE simply files cases in court, far outside of the reach of any college bureaucrat's fiefdom.

Agreed, but the enemy is slippery and will use the most obtuse methods to avoid, exploit, end-around, etc. Once FIRE's tactics become well known, the enemy will adapt or submit. Submission isn't really part of their palette.

Not at all. I'm merely suggesting that FIRE can become a victim of it's own success unless it's constantly on its toes, which I hope it remains. If they fail in a given instance, the how's and the why's will make the rounds. Even if they never fail, their means of success will be looked at closely.

Contrary to the snobs here, I think UW Stout provides a worthwhile science and engineering curriculum in the northern part of the state. 99% of employers hiring bachelor-degree technical graduates from Stout report the hire to be "well prepared" for a career in their field (the highest in the UW system). UW Stout was the first higher education recipient nationwide of the Baldridge Quality Award.

Part of that award is for a system that receives and incorporates feedback. Stout has redacted its censorship and apologized.

When will UW Madison apologize for the Damon Williams organized anti-speech mob? I suspect they won't be winning the Baldridge Award anytime soon, in part because the feedback loop appears to be broken.